Home Before Dark

by Susan Wiggs

  From a distance, the property appeared to be as Jessie remembered it. With a lurch of bittersweet emotion, she recognized the boxy, two-storey main house, the garage and boathouse, the dirt path winding through the woods to the three guest cabins they used to rent out to tourists. When they were girls, Luz and Jessie earned pocket money by changing beds and towels for the fishermen who came for the weekend.

  Yet as she drew closer, she noticed differences. Unfamiliar vehicles—a dusty minivan and a Honda Civic parked under the car port. Gumball-colored toys littered the front path. She spotted a doghouse with the unlikely name Beaver painted over the opening. A flat of purple asters lay unplanted in the yard; a half-caned chair stood on the porch. Someone’s partially eaten apple lay on the ground, swarming with fire ants. The place had an air of things left undone; Luz’s family had dropped everything as though something had interrupted them.

  They were about to be interrupted again. Jessie hadn’t dared to call first. She’d been too afraid that she’d talk herself out of coming. Or worse, that she’d promise to visit and then chicken out at the last moment, disappearing as she had before, and disappointing everyone—again. The heartbreak that had sent her running long ago had never healed.

  When she got out of the car and slammed the door, a throaty baying erupted. A gangly bluetick hound galloped across the yard, bristling neck hairs contradicted by the friendly swaying of a long tail. Jessie didn’t know much about dogs. Because of the way she’d grown up, she’d never owned one. Their gypsylike existence in the back of their mother’s pink Rambler had left room only for the occasional carnival goldfish in a clear plastic bag. One year a white mouse had lived for an entire summer in a Buster Brown shoebox before going AWOL at a motel in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

  “You hush,” yelled a voice from inside the house.

  Jessie’s palms were drenched in sweat. She wanted—needed—to pray but only the most childish of thoughts streamed out. Please God, get me through this.

  The screen door of the porch opened with a creak and shut with a snap. Her sister Luz froze like a pillar of salt at the porch rail. Even in denim cutoffs and a bleach-faded pink T-shirt, Luz appeared formidable, in command.

  “Jess…” Her whisper lingered over the sibilant sound, then she jumped down the stairs and raced across the yard. “Oh, my God, Jess.”

  They ran toward each other, arms reaching across time and distance and terrible words until the two sisters clashed in a tangle of limbs. As they embraced, a flood of emotion stole Jessie’s breath. She batted back tears as she stepped away, shaken and battered and overwhelmed by bittersweet joy. Luz. Her sister Luz. The years had caused her beauty to soften like an oft-washed quilt. Her face bore the subtle lines of wear and tear. Her vivid red hair was paler in tone now, not so intense. She had borne three children, and it showed; she was rounder than the much younger picture of Luz that Jessie had carried in her mind.

  “Surprise,” she said with forced lightheartedness, then caught a flicker of concern in her sister’s eyes. “I should have called first.”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t mind,” Luz said. “It’s fabulous. And it’s so you.”

  Is it? Jessie wondered. Do we even know each other anymore? They’d kept in touch by phone and e-mail, but the sporadic contact was no substitute for being a part of each other’s lives. She studied her sister’s face, seeing an oddly distorted reflection of herself. Jessie and Luz had the same color hair, a faint saddle of freckles over their noses and eyes, their mother used to say, the color of a Scottish putting green.

  A movement caught her eye as someone else came onto the porch—a tall, slender girl in shorts and a black tank top, with flame-red hair and eyes narrowed in curiosity.

  Dropping her hands from her sister, Jessie gaped. Could this be her daughter, her tiny baby, this tentative young woman who matched her height exactly?

  She cast a glance at Luz, whose smile was strained at the edges even as she gave Jessie a gentle shove forward. “Surprise,” she whispered, echoing Jessie’s lighthearted tone.

  “Look at you,” Jessie said to the girl. Then, with an irony only she understood, she added, “I swear, you’re so beautiful, my eyes ache.” She opened her arms wide.

  For a moment, the girl stared. Frozen with fear, Jessie stared back, then slowly lowered her arms. She sensed but didn’t see Luz make a signal to Lila, perhaps in some secret language of semaphores between mothers and daughters.

  “Uh, hi,” Lila said, her voice familiar and cherished from occasional overseas phone calls. She offered a tentative smile with all the wariness of a jogger confronting a large, unfamiliar dog.

  You made this moment happen, Jessie told herself as the hurt settled in. This is your doing. She held herself still, her posture open. Nanoseconds before the awkwardness turned unbearable, Lila left the porch and walked toward Jessie. She hugged her uneasily, but Jessie couldn’t stand it anymore and caught the girl in her arms.

  “Oh, yeah, hug me, Lila,” Jessie said through tears she didn’t dare show. “Hug me hard.”

  The strong, slender arms tightened, and Jessie’s heart soared. She was overcome by the lemony smell of Lila’s hair, the youthful freshness of her skin, the warmth of her breathing. Holding her daughter for the first time was a huge moment in Jessie’s life, and she wondered if her awe and enchantment showed. She realized her eyes were shut tight. Funny, that. When you held someone this close, you really couldn’t see them, but all the other senses were filled to brimming.

  She opened her eyes and saw Luz watching them. A cherry-red blush shadowed Lila’s sweetly freckled cheeks. Jessie was drenched in wonder. It was like looking into a mirror, a particularly wonderful mirror that erased all the hard living and sleepless nights, all the mistakes and missteps of the past.

  “Who is that lady, Mama?” A blunt, childish question broke the spell.

  “Moi?” With her best Miss Piggy imitation, Jessie turned to face the little tousle-headed sprite. Though reluctant to relinquish Lila, she didn’t want to make a scene here and now. “Who is that lady?” Grabbing the little boy under the arms, she swooped him up. “I’m your long-lost auntie, that’s who.” She swung him around until he squealed with joy. “I know who you are,” she said. “You’re Rumpelstiltskin.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “You’re Scottie and you’re four and you have a dog named Beaver.”

  He nodded vigorously. Jessie set him down to address the other two boys watching avidly from the porch. “Your brother Wyatt is eleven and Owen is eight and he puts ketchup on everything he eats.” Wyatt elbowed Owen, who gazed at her in amazement, clearly unaware of the telltale red-orange smear across his Animorphs T-shirt.

  “What does Lila eat?” Scottie demanded, wanting more magic.

  Jessie beamed at her. “Any damned thing she wants.”

  The boys’ eyes widened, and they snickered.

  “Mama!” Scottie spoke up first. “She said—”

  “I said let’s go inside before I die of thirst,” Jessie interrupted.

  The four children trooped into the house. Luz lingered to hug her one more time. Laughing, moist-eyed, she said, “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe I’m seeing you again.” She paused to study Jessie from head to toe, taking in the swirling magenta skirt and marigold silk camisole from Bombay. “The kids already think you’re Mary Poppins,” she added. “Come on in. I’ll see if I can’t find my recipe for fatted calf.”

  Jessie felt the subtle sting of the barb. “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “And you weren’t detained as a deviant at the Texas border?”

  Jessie tripped on the bottom step and clutched at her sister for support. “Sorry,” she said, laughing it off. “I think the jet lag is finally gaining on me.”

  She stepped into the unfamiliar chaos of a busy family. A TV, radio and stereo were all playing in various parts of the house. Kid clutter—lacrosse net, Rollerblades, schoolbooks and incomprehensible pocket-s
ized plastic toys—littered the main room. The smell of simmering spaghetti sauce spiced the air.

  “We took a wall out and turned this whole space into a great room,” Luz said, handing her a big tumbler of iced tea. “I can’t believe you’re here, Jess.”

  “Right in the middle of suppertime.”

  “I was putting the pasta on. Are you hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  “I’ll get busy, then, and you can keep me company.” Luz led her to a stool by the kitchen island and offered her a seat. With negligent efficiency, she donned an apron, like a cowboy strapping on a gun belt. Jesus, an apron, thought Jessie. Her sister wore an apron.

  As usual, Luz didn’t mince words. “So what about Simon?”

  Jessie hesitated. What about Simon? She’d known him for sixteen years, but had he ever really been a part of her life? He’d been teacher, mentor, lover, yet they had both cultivated the ability to set each other aside when something else came along. Even so, over the years their paths had kept crossing. They fell in and out of their relationship like time-share vacationers spending points. Then, in the past year, when the reality of her condition came crashing down, she’d dared to test the depths of their commitment. They’d both failed the test.

  But it was all too complicated to explain, so she said, “Simon dumped me.”

  “Who’s Simon?” Lila asked.

  “Some pr—” Noting her sister’s stiff posture, she said, “I mean, some jerk. He and I worked together, and he was my lov—boyfriend up until I— Until about a week ago.” She suppressed a sigh of frustration. The thing about not being married is that you can’t get divorced. So they didn’t really know how to break up. Simon had bumbled around, muttering about a big new project in the Himalayas and how she shouldn’t do anything hasty until she’d finally said, “Oh, come on, Simon, just be the prick you know you can be.”

  “Aw, Jessie.” Luz patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry. What an idiot. What was he thinking?”

  “He knew exactly what he was doing.” Actually it hadn’t broken Jessie’s heart to leave him. She was good at leaving, and she’d left without regrets, simply bolted for refuge where she could hole up and heal. But it didn’t feel like a refuge here, and she knew she would never heal.

  “Lila, would you mind setting the table.” Luz didn’t ask it as a question. “You’ll need to bring a folding chair from the deck.”

  Heartstruck, Jessie watched the girl respond to Luz’s request with a belligerence she didn’t bother to veil. Slamming open the sliding door to the deck, she brought in a chair and set it at the long table stretched to its limit by three leaves.

  Lila. Jessie had sung the name to herself innumerable nights as she lay awake, thinking, wondering, wishing…Lila. A pair of liquid sighs, a sound as pretty as a spring breeze. Weeks after Jessie had walked out of the hospital, never to return, Luz had sent a picture of a tiny red-faced newborn that could have been any baby. On the back of the photo, Luz had written, “We named her Lila Jane in honor of the two NICU nurses who helped us so much.”

  Of course. They’d had more to do with Lila’s survival than Jessie ever had. She had simply left, never looking back, with only the agony of her milk coming in, then drying up unused to haunt her with reminders of what she’d left behind. Jessie remembered looking at that photo for hours, trying to understand what she’d tossed into the wind, resisting the urge to gather it back. Oh, she used to ache with yearning and regrets, wishing she could hold her baby, witness her first smile, first tooth, first step. But that would only have deepened the agony. More than once in those early days, the physical distance and lack of funds had kept her from doing something foolish.

  Luz assigned chores to each of the boys. Wyatt was in charge of slicing the bread, which he did with a stream of martial arts sound effects. Owen went outside to fetch his dad to dinner. Scottie was appointed chief napkin folder, and his airplane noises competed with Wyatt’s Kiai until the place sounded like a war zone.

  Lila must have felt Jessie’s adoring, pain-filled gaze; she looked across the scrubbed pine table laden with chipped china and mismatched flatware and said, “This is not my life.”

  Jessie laughed, even though Lila didn’t crack a smile. But Jessie thought, it is. It’s the life I gave you. Tell me I wasn’t wrong.

  CHAPTER 3

  A moment later, stomping feet sounded on the porch. “Intruder alert. Intruder alert,” Owen and his father announced in a robotic monotone. Owen sat atop his father’s shoulders, ducking down as they came through the door.

  “Ian!” Jessie hurried forward as he flipped Owen head-over-heels to the floor. She hugged her brother-in-law briefly, a bit awkwardly.

  He stepped back and grinned at her. He was one of those men who would look boyish at any age, be it twenty, forty… When he was sixty, he would probably still wear that Lone Star Longneck T-shirt and the same size Levi’s he’d worn in law school. Same blue eyes, same large gentle hands.

  Jessie’s skin prickled with apprehension. She’d known, of course, that by coming here she would have to face him, but she found herself unprepared for the sight of his lean frame, the abundant hair tumbling over his brow, the broad shoulders and generously smiling face.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” he said. “Long time no see.”

  “You look great, Ian,” she said, feeling a rise of complicated emotion. For Luz’s sake, they’d long ago put aside their old enmity and treated each other with good-natured familiarity.

  “I smell like two hours of yard work.” He paused to kiss Luz on the back of the neck as she worked at the kitchen counter. “You’re a slave driver, Mrs. Benning.” Grabbing Scottie like a football under his arm, he went to wash up.

  Dinner was served boardinghouse style—pasta, red sauce with meatballs, meatless sauce hastily poured from a Ragú bottle, salad, bread. Luz seemed nervous, yet fiercely competent as she juggled glasses of milk and plates of spaghetti. Jessie felt like the main dish as the kids peppered her with questions. “Are you really our mom’s sister?”

  “Her baby sister, by three years.”

  “Are you famous? Mom told us you’re a famous photographer.”

  “Your mom is being generous. My pictures are published in magazines but nobody knows who I am. Photographs are not for making the photographer famous. But it was heaps of fun.”

  “How come you talk funny?” asked Owen as he played with the croutons on his salad plate.

  “I’ve been living in New Zealand for about fifteen years,” Jessie said. “I probably picked up a bit of an accent. But you know what? They think I talk funny.”

  “Why New Zealand?” Lila asked. “How did you end up there?”

  “That’s a long story,” Luz said quickly. “I don’t think—”

  “The fact is,” said Jessie, feeling an unwelcome flicker of the old tension, “my very own sister made it possible.” She settled her gaze on Lila. “I have a really generous sister. She and I were going to graduate from college at the same time, but there was only enough money to pay for one final semester. Luz insisted on being the one to quit and get a job.”

  “You had the higher grade point average, better prospects, a chance to work abroad with Carrington,” Luz reminded her.

  “I hope you’re as good a sister as Luz is,” Jessie said to Lila.

  “She is,” Scottie said stoutly. “She’s the best sister I got.”

  Lila ruffled his hair. “I’m the only sister you’ve got.”

  The moment of tension passed. Jessie pushed back from the table and gave everyone a wicked grin. “I brought presents.”

  “Presents!” The boys punched the air. At a nod from Luz, they excused themselves and followed Jessie outside to paw through the boot of the rental car for the ANZAC bag containing the treasures. Even in her haste to leave, Jessie had taken the time to choose gifts for her family: a Maori waka figurine for Scottie, a fearsome carved swamp kauri mask for Owen and a small model of a Maori war canoe for Wy
att. For Ian, there was a kiwi bottlestopper, and for Lila, a set of paua barrettes, which gleamed with natural iridescence. She smiled a bit shyly, and it was all the thanks Jessie needed. Finally she gave Luz a carved greenstone pendant.

  “It’s the koru,” she said. “A native fern. Regarded as a symbol of birth, death and rebirth. It represents everlasting life and reincarnation.”

  “So it pretty much covers all bases.”

  “Yep.”

  “I need all the help I can get.” With a laugh, she leaned forward and hugged Jessie, a flash of good-natured envy in her eyes. “You’ve been to some fabulous places.”

  “This is pretty damned fabulous, if you ask me. I love what you’ve done to the house.”

  In the den, the phone rang, but no one sprang to answer it. Luz caught Jessie’s look. “We don’t take calls during dinner.”

  “But dinner’s over,” Lila protested.

  “Not until the table’s cleared.” Luz ignored Lila’s poisonous look.

  The machine kicked on, followed by the sound of a distinctly male, adolescent voice.

  The cherry blush returned to Lila’s cheeks. She said nothing, but Wyatt piped up, leading his brothers in from the porch. “She’s in looove. She’s in love with Heath Walker,” he said in a singsong taunt. Together, he and his brothers broke into the classic chant: “Lila and Heath, sittin’ in a tree, K. I. S. S. I. N. G…”

  Lila mouthed something that looked like fucking morons, threw her napkin on the table and stomped upstairs. Wyatt and Owen elbowed each other and giggled until Ian glared them into silence. Scottie chanted under his breath, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Lila with a ba-by carriage!”

  Jessie met Luz’s eyes across the table. “Welcome home,” Luz said.